Will Ferrell reveals what scares him

The 47-year-old actor rented a house in New Orleans while filming The Campaign and used to go ”looking” for spooks every night and beg them to stay away from him.

He said: ”The person who rented it to me said many generations had lived there. And I said, ‘So people died here?’ She didn’t answer. And I would come home and hear the moans and creaks of this old house and I would say out loud, ‘Not now! I just can’t deal with this OK?’ That was my ritual. ‘Not now.”’

The Elf actor also revealed he once tried to convince his entire college fraternity that they should ”consider going gay” for practical reasons.

He explained: ”We would have these Monday chapter meetings and I was our song chairman. Literally the only thing required is to lead the fraternity in song when you’re having a special event. For some amazing reason I convinced everyone I should give a song chairman’s report, and I suggested the fraternity really should consider going gay. I had all these practical reasons. Like, it would save us a lot of money in terms of parties. It would reduce our risk from a liability standpoint…”

Will insists he didn’t care that not everyone in the group understood it was a joke.

He told GQ magazine: ”There’s a perverse pleasure in knowing 75 to 80 per cent of people will get it, but knowing 20 to 25 per cent will not only think it’s not funny, but will be like, ‘That’s dumb. Why would we do that? I don’t get it. We hate that guy.”’